Once a Winchester, Always a Winchester
by critikalrole
Summary: Kylie Nyx Clark did have a normal life (sorta), living with her grandmother, on the soccer team with her second grade class, but it was all taken away from her when Dean showed up to take custody.
1. Pilot

"...listen, dad… if you ever get these messages please call me back. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now…" Dean pressed the end call button on his cell-phone while letting out a sigh. He looked up from his phone to the house he parked in front of, he had just drove about hour hours from Kansas to Nebraska for the most important call he has ever gotten.

Someone named Diana Clark had called him the night before saying that he has been taking care of his daughter for the past seven years. His daughter. His seven year old daughter who he knew nothing about. Apparently Diana was his daughter's grandmother but didn't go into too much detail about where his daughter's mother was at in the picture. It was getting to a point where Diana couldn't take of her anymore because of her age and decided that it was time for Dean to take over. How Diana got his phone number he would never know, but he was here now and it was time to face the music.

With another long sigh and a tight feeling in his chest Dean decided that it was time for him to go. He walked up to the brightly painted house that was covered in flowers in the front lawn and rang the doorbell. The waiting was the worst part about this since he had no idea what to expect from this experience. Seeing how nice the house appeared to be on the outside Dean felt kinda bad that he was going to take his daughter from a nice home to just living out in motels and his car.

It felt like forever until Dean heard slow footsteps on the other side of the door, it slowly opened to reveal an older woman who appeared to be in her late 60's. That must have been Diana. Diana had a bright smile on her face as she clearly recognized Dean to be her granddaughter's father as they looked extremely alike.

"You must be Dean," she said as she opened the door wider for him.

"And you're Diana? The one who called me?"

"Oh, yes! I'm sure Kylie will be thrilled to meet you!"

"Kylie," Dean repeated slowly as if the name was foreign to him.

Diana welcomed Dean inside the neat little house that did feel homey to him which made him feel worse about taking Kylie away from it. Did he really have to take her away from all this? He looked at the picture frames that lined the walls of the living room while waiting for the little old lady to go fetch Kylie. The majority of the pictures were Kylie when she was younger: her during her fifth birthday party, her wearing a soccer uniform with a huge smile on her face, and a couple of them posing with Diana. She was going to leave all of this. Lord, did she look like him.

Dean turned around when he heard small footsteps entering the room, behind him was Kylie staring up at him with the same green eyes he had. She didn't look too happy though. As if she knew that she was leaving a wonderful home and trading it for a crappy one.

Dean knelt down in front of her holding out his hand, not sure what he was supposed to do in this situation. "I'm Dean… er… I'm your dad." Kylie looked at Dean, down to his hand then back up to him, hell, she didn't know what to do either.

There was an elephant in the room until Diana decided to break it. "Kylie Nyx Clark, don't be rude to your father."

Kylie rolled her eyes before meeting her father's outstretched hand, shaking it. "I'm Kylie," she said quietly. She shifted the backpack to her other shoulder as Dean stood up.

"I love you, Kylie," Diana said to her granddaughter with a big smile on her face but there were tears in her eyes. She hugged Kylie tightly with the tears falling and rolling down her cheeks. She was going to miss that bundle of joy so much. "You take care of her, Dean. Please have her call me a few times a week."

"I love you too, nana."

"I'll make sure it happens. Ready to go, kiddo?"

Kylie shrugged as she shuffled towards the front door with Dean behind her. He took Kylie's backpack from her before opening up the Impala's passenger door. He put the backpack in the backseat before getting into the driver's seat. When he looked over after getting settled in the car he saw Kylie already had her 3DS out and was playing a game with the sound turned up all the way.

"What'cha playing there?"

"A game," Kylie basically snapped as she was so focused on the game, the clicking of the buttons were echoing through the car.

"Look, I don't know what your grandma allowed at her house but since you're living with me now I won't take the attitude." It's been less than ten minutes since they left and Dean was already lecturing her. Nice… Kylie rolled her eyes as she was barely even paying attention to her father and moreso on her game instead. "Did you hear me?"

"Yeah, whatever…"

Oh this kid was going to get it. "Cut the attitude, Kylie. I swear I'll throw your stupid little game out the window."

"Mhm…"

Dean rolled his eyes as he started up the Impala, heading off towards the highway. If this was the way Kylie was going to act the entire time they were going to be together then this was going to be an adventure. He had little to no patience towards people with major attitude problems. Looks like Kylie was going to be one of them.

After driving on the highway for a good ten-fifth-teen minutes Kylie finally paused her game. "So… Where do we live? Nebraska still, or…?"

Dean let out a nervous chuckle. God, she wasn't going to like this answer. "Right… Well… You see I live off in motels."

"Mo-...motels," Kylie repeated. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Unfortunately not."

"Wh-... Then where are we going?"

"You're going to meet your Uncle Sammy."

* * *

An entire day's trip seemed more like a week trip because of Kylie. She had to take a rest stop every hour or so and it really threw Dean off since he never made a stop unless it was completely necessary. Finally making it to Stanford University felt like a miracle. Even though it was in the middle of the night.

Pulling into the apartment complex, Dean cut the engine then looked down at Kylie who was sleeping soundly in the seat next to him with the 3DS laying in her lap with the game still on. He groaned because he knew now that he was going to have to deal with Kylie's bitchy attitude. Great.

"Kylie… Kylie, wake up," Dean said loudly as he was shaking her shoulder to wake her from her slumber.

"Uh…. Eugh…" Kylie grumbled something unintelligible under her breath as she was starting to wake up. "Huh?" He opened her eyes and looked around the dark parking lot. "Where are we at? I thought we lived in our car."

"Oh, no no no… There is no our car, okay? It's my car. No, this is where you Uncle Sammy lives."

"Uncle Sammy." A smile crossed Kylie's face as she was extremely excited to meet her kinda-new uncle. "Let's go!" She scrambled out of the car with Dean following behind her. "Hey!" She yelled as her father grabbed her arm. "Let go!"

"Not like this, stay quiet and follow me."

Dean walked on ahead of her making his movements as quiet as possible as they walked through the apartment hallway. Kylie stomped her feet down just to piss off her dad and he knew that.

"Will you stop that?!" Dean hissed quietly. "You'll get us both in trouble."

That seemed to catch Kylie's attention. She didn't know what kinda trouble that her dad was talking about but she didn't really want to find out. While Dean was kneeling in front of Sam's apartment door Kylie was on lookout for anyone that may catch them breaking into his house. Even though they don't have much Kylie thought that this was kinda a rush.

Once the door clicked opened Dean turned around to face Kylie. "I want you to go hide behind one of the chairs, okay? And don't come out until I say so. Understand?" He whispered.

"Okay, dad."

Dean watched as his daughter tiptoed through the dark living room and hiding behind an old recliner chair. Perfect. He stood up and walked into the kitchen, closing the door halfway. This was going to be good.

He was focusing more on the plan in his head than watching where he was going. He ran into the kitchen table, cursing under his breath because of all the noise that he had made. That was surely going to wake somebody up.

Both Kylie and Dean heard some floorboards creaking around, yeah, Dean did wake up somebody that was clear. From where he was standing Dean could see Sam's figure standing in the doorway, so he purposely walked across the kitchen doorway covered with beads to get his attention. Dean could hear Sam walking up behind him and was ready for this.

Sam grabbed Dean's shoulder to see who it was, but Dean grabbed his arm in defense and twisted it around. He pushed Sam back into the living room where Kylie was hiding before coming towards his little brother with his fists ready. He punched Sam in the face who stepped back in surprise before kicking towards the mysterious figure who broke into his house. He missed, so once again they started using their fists to fend each other off. Until Dean saw he had the upper hand. He grabbed Sam by the shoulders then pinned him to the dirty living room floor.

"Whoa, easy, tiger," Dean said with a smile on his face. The streetlight from outside the room was shining over his face to reveal to Sam who broke in.

"Dean?" Sam said in a stunned state while trying to catch his breath. His older brother let out a low chuckle. "You scared the crap outta me!"

"That's 'cause you're out of practice." Dean's ego got the better of him, it put him off guard to Sam grabbing him and pinning him to the ground in his place. He chuckled again. "Or not. Get off of me." He grabbed Sam's hand and stood up.

"Dean, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I was looking for a beer."

The brothers were distracted enough that they didn't hear the other pair of footsteps that were entering the room. Suddenly, the kitchen light turned on. "Sam?" A female voice called out.

They both turned to face where the voice came from. It was a girl around her twenties with long blonde hair, a Smurf shirt and short shorts. "Jess, hey," Sam greeted his girlfriend who was sleeping in the next room over. "Dead, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."

"Wait… Your brother Dean?" She smiled as Dean walked towards her.

"I love the Smurfs," Dean motioned towards her low cut shirt. "You know, I gotta tell you, you are completely out of my brother's league."

"Let me put something on."

Hearing the conversation from behind a recliner chair Kylie was hearing this all out of context and had no idea what the hell was going on. Her eyes got wide in confusion, were there naked people in Uncle Sammy's house. Oh God…

"No, no. No, I wouldn't dream of it, seriously. Anyway…" Dean turned to face Sam again. "I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business, but nice meeting you."

"No," Sam said firmly as he moved over to Jessica's side, wrapping an arm around her. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Okay. Well, first things first…" Dean looked over his shoulder at the chair behind him. "Kylie, you can come out now."

Sam had no idea what Dean was talking about. Who the hell was Kylie? When the seven year old popped out from behind the chair Sam's eyes went wide. He knew exactly who she was now only because she looked so much like Dean. Holy crap.

"W-who is this?!" Sam said, his eyes still wide.

"This is my daughter. Her name is Kylie." Dean wrapped an arm around Kylie's shoulder. "She's joining the Family Business."

"Joining the-"

"And another thing," Dean cut Sam off quickly, "Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days."

* * *

Sam got dressed quickly after excusing himself from Jess so they could talk in private. He still couldn't wrap his head around Dean having a daughter. Most importantly, he couldn't understand why Dean would want to bring his daughter into this kinda life. It was tough for them growing up like this and they hated it, why would he do this to Kylie?

"C'mon, Dean…" Sam started his lecture as they were going down the stairs. "You can't just break in in the middle of the night with your daughter and expect me to hit the road with you guys."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help us find him."

"You remember the Poltergeist in Amherst, or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then too. He's always missing, and he's always fine."

Kylie had no idea what words Uncle Sammy was spewing out of his mouth but it sounded like it was important and/or interesting. All she could do was watch them and listen.

"Not for this long," Dean continued the conversation. "Now, are you gonna come with us or not?"

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"I swore I was done hunting for good."

"C'mon, it wasn't easy but it wasn't that bad."

"Yeah? When I told dad I was scared of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45."

"What was he supposed to do?"

"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, 'don't be afraid of the dark.'"

"'Don't be afraid of the dark'? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid. You know what's out there!"

"W-what's in the dark?!" Kylie almost shouted as she was already afraid of the dark but hearing them say something like that made her even more paranoid. Was it going to kill her or eat her? The possibilities were endless.

"Nothing is in the dark, Kylie. Your dad is just making things up," Sam tried to reassure her. It made her feel relieved at first but then Dean had to open his big mouth.

"Don't lie to her, Sammy. She's gonna know sooner or later what's really out there and I want to make sure that she's prepared. She's going into the Family Business."

"It's too dangerous, Dean! Can't you see that?"

"It's just hunting, Uncle Sammy. Animals can't hurt you that much, can they?"

"That's… not what hunting means exactly…"

Kylie looked up at her dad to give her an explanation but, of course, he didn't give one. It seemed like Dean was filled with secrets and it was very bothersome to her. He was forcing her into something that she had no idea about, that was even scarier than the dark in her opinion.

"Look, dad's obsession to find the thing that…" He paused, looking down at Kylie who was listening to their conversation intensely," the thing that took mom, but we still haven't found the damn thing." Dean rolled his eyes in frustration as he glanced out the window that was to his left. "So we kill everything we can find."

"Save a lot of people doing it too."

Sam scoffed. "You think mom would have wanted this for us?"

Dean didn't say anything, the subject was too touchy for him, so instead he shoved the door opened and walked out of the room with the two following behind him. Kylie was aching to ask more questions but the tension around them was preventing her to do so.

Even though Sam could feel the upset vibes coming from his older brother he kept going anyways. "The weapon training and the melting the silving into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors. Do you really want that for Kylie?"

"What? You just want us to live some normal, apple-pie life? Is that it?"

"No, not normal. She just needs to live a safe life. That shouldn't be too much to ask."

"That's why you ran away."

"I was just going to college. It was dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Dad's in real trouble right now if he's not dead already. I can feel it. Kylie and I can't do this alone."

"You guys can manage it just fine."

Dean looked down at his shoes to gather his thoughts together before looking back up. "Yeah, I know. But I want you to help."

Sam knew he was going to so regret this decision after he let out a long sigh. He couldn't just turn his brother and niece away after they came so far to find him. Maybe dad really was in trouble since Dean wouldn't come to him unless it was an emergency. "What was he hunting?"

The trunk of the Impala popped opened, Dean lifted up the false floor to reveal all kinds of tools and weapons used during their hunting trips. Kylie was wide eyed as she was trying to comprehend what the hell was going on exactly. There were dozens of guns and knifes just sitting there. She wanted to touch them.

"Alright, let's see…" Dean said as he was pushing things aside to find the papers he needed. "Where the hell did I put that thing?"

"So when dad left why didn't you go with him?"

"I was working on my own gig… this voodoo thing down in New Orleans."

Sam chuckled as he looked back up at his brother. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"

"I'm 26, dude. Alright, here we go. So dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy-" Out of the corner of his eye he could see Kylie standing on her toes to try and reach for one of the knife's inside the trunk. He quickly slapped her hand away causing her to yelp in surprise. "Don't touch that. Anyways, this guy," he handed the paper over to Sam. "They found his car, but he'd vanished. Completely M.I.A."

"What's M.I.A.?" Kylie wondered aloud.

"Missing in action. Maybe he was kidnapped."

"Yeah, well, here's another one in April, another on in December '04, '03, '98, '92." He put each case paper down in the trunk as he was naming them off. "Ten of them over the past 20 years. All men, all same 5-mile stretch of road. Started happening more and more, so dad went digging around, that was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough, and then I get this voice mail yesterday." Dean picked up his phone, pressing place.

The voice was distorted as the voice of Sam and Dean's father played. "Dean, something is starting to happen I think it's serious. I need to try to figure out…. Zzzzttttz ….. What's going on… zzzzttttttzzzzz ….. Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger…. Zzttzz …."

"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam asked.

"Good job, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, huh? Alright I slowed the message down and ran it through a GoldWave, took out the hiss and this is what I got."

"I can never go home, " a female voice then came from the tape that Dean played.

Kylie's eyes went wide in shock and terror. What the hell was that thing? It sounded terrifying and almost…inhuman like? What was her father getting her into? She wanted to go back home with her nana, she didn't want to live out in crappy motels and the Impala. She wanted her old life back even though she hasn't even seen the beginning of her new life with her father.

"'Never go home,'" Sam repeated after the tape.

Looking around to make sure that nobody was watching them, Dean then slammed the trunk of his car shut. He turned to look at Sam. "Y'know, in almost two years, I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." He said as he sat down on the now closed trunk of the Impala.

Apart of Sam just wanted to let all of this go, to tell Dean and Kylie to scram and to never come back. He wanted to stay on track for his future plans for getting into law school, to put all of this hunting business behind him and to never look back. However, Dean was his brother and he did have a point. He never asked anything from Sam, never not once. God, this was a hard decision.

Finally Sam let out a sigh, he couldn't believe he was gonna say this… "Alright, I'll go. I'll help you guys but I have to get back first thing Monday." He looked over his shoulder then back to Dean and Kylie. "Be right back."

"What's Monday?" Dean asked as Sam started to walk away.

He turned back towards him. "I have an interview."

"What, a job interview? Skip it."

"Then how is Uncle Sammy supposed to live in the real world?!" Kylie exclaimed with actual concern for her newfound uncle. "He's gonna be a bum like you dad! Ow!" Kylie glared up at her dad while rubbing the back of her neck as he had just hit her upside the head.

"It's a law-school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate. Which is why I'm not skipping it because Kylie's right. I don't wanna be a bum like you." Sam smiled at his niece who giggled in response.

"Law school," Dean repeated as if he didn't understand the meaning.

"So we got a deal or not?"

* * *

Who knows how long they've been driving for, but it was high morning and the Impala was almost out of gas. While Dean was driving, Sam was in the passenger seat and Kylie was in the back playing with her 3DS. Er… was. She won't be happy to know that the game's battery died while she was napping. Especially since she hadn't saved it in a few hours after just completing a boss battle.

Kylie was startled awake when her father shook her knee to get her attention after pulling up a gas pump.

"What do you want for breakfast?" Dean asked her as he pulled out his wallet.

"Mountain Dew, Starbursts, and Cheetos."

"That's not breakfast," Sam pointed out.

"Well, that's what I want."

Dean snapped his fingers at her to get her attention once again. "Stow the attitude. I'm not playing around with that crap. I'll be right back."

Sam waited to ask any questions until Dean went inside the shop in paranoia that he may be able to hear them talking. He'd been wanting to talk to Kylie for a while but with Dean there he knew that it was going to be impossible. At least now he had his chance.

"So, Kylie," Sam started, turning around in the passenger seat so he could face her. "Why after all this time did your dad finally come pick you up?"

"Hmm…" Kylie looked down at the 3DS in her lap, fidgeting with it. "I dunno, I mean, I guess because my nana was getting too old or something. She's moving into a retirement home in a few months."

"Would it bother you if I asked where your mother was?"

Kylie shrugged. "I guess not since you already just asked. When I was six months old she died in a house fire, or at least that's what my nana told me. I don't really remember any of it though…"

Now why did that sound familiar? Was it something that Sam should bring up or should he just keep it to himself? That was a huge coincidence… Hopefully… As much as Sam wanted to bring up his past too he decided against it, he didn't want to freak his niece out or anything.

"I'm… sorry for your loss…" was all that Sam could bring himself to say with a sad smile on his face. Now the real question was if he should tell Dean. He should right? After all, that is Kylie's father…

"Heads up!" They both heard Dean yell as he threw the bag filled with snacks for Kylie through her opened window. "Enjoy your breakfast. Did you want some, Sammy?" He asked his little brother who opened the car door to let in more fresh air.

"No thanks. How'd you pay for that stuff anyways? You and dad still running credit-card scams?"

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro-ball career. Besides, all we do is apply it's not our fault they send us the cards."

"Yeah, and what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam closed his door as Dean got back into the driver's seat.

"Uhh… Bert Aframian and his son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."

"Sounds about right."

"Oooh! I wanna do a cred card scam too, dad!"

"It's 'credit-card.' And don't worry about all that, I'll show you how to do all the fun stuff." Kylie stood up in the backseat, leaning forward to see what Uncle Sammy had in the box on his lap. "Ooooh!" She said again when she saw all the different tapes in the box.

"I swear, man, you gotta update your cassette-tape collection."

"Why?" Yeah, Dean sounded hurt. Why? Because those tapes were like his many, many, many children. It's like asking to throw away a pet because they were too old.

"Yeah, why Uncle Sammy? They're cool!"

"Well… For one; they're cassette tapes. And two; Black Sabbath." Sam held up one of the cassette tapes then dropped it back down before shuffling through the dusty box again. "Motorhead, Metallica?" Kylie lunged forward, snatching the Metallica cassette tape from her uncle's hands. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"Metallica is cool, Uncle Sammy! Play this one, dad."

Gently taking the tape from his daughter removing it for it from the case. "House Rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole." He plopped the case back into its dusty box where it belonged before starting up the Impala.

"What about me?" Kylie questioned with a smile on her face.

"Correction: driver and drivers daughter picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole, Sammy."

With a grunt Sam rolled his eyes as he sat back in his seat. "Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's Sam, okay?"

Loveless' "A Gift to the World" started to play loudly through the speakers of the Impala. It wasn't a band or a song that Kylie had heard before but she was digging it.

"Sorry, I can't hear you. The music's too loud!"

The engine of the Impala revved loudly as they took off from the gas station and off to find John.

* * *

A sign that said JERICHO 7 came up quickly as Dean was speeding down the old country road. Kylie still wasn't sure what she was expecting when or if they did manage to find Grandpa John. Hell, she still wasn't 100% sure what hunting meant but knew that it didn't have anything to do with cute fuzzy animals. Whatever, what happens happens.

She looked up from her game when Uncle Sammy hung up his cell-phone. He had been calling around places for the past hour or so trying to find out where Grandpa John could be, but so far he hasn't had any luck.

"Alright, there is nobody matching dad at the hospital or morgue," Sam announced as he was starting to fidget with his phones antenna. "So that's something, I guess."

"I can't wait to meet grandpa!" Kylie said with a huge smile on her face. "He owes me soooo many birthday presents!"

Sam and Dean looked at each other. They didn't want to say anything about their father to Kylie because they didn't want to disappoint her that he isn't the person that she made him out to be. Kylie was thinking that he was a normal person who went out hunting animals and lived in a cabin.

"What about grandma? When can I meet grandma?"

"We'll talk about that later, kiddo," Dean answered in almost a snappy tone. He didn't like anybody talking about his mother, and the false hope that Kylie had that she may one day meet her broke his heart.

"Dad! Look!" Kylie yelled, pointing outside the windshield.

As a normal reaction without looking, Dean slammed on the break in case he was about to run over someone or something. "What?! What is it?!" He demanded.

"At the bridge!"

"Look at all the cops lined up," Sam added in. "Something clearly is going down."

"Lets check it out." Dean pulled over the Impala so they could get a better look and to also make a game plan of what they wanted to do with these cops. He rolled up the window in case any of them could hear them talking from outside. "How good of an actor are you, Kylie?" He asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt, leaning over he opened the glove compartment in front of Sam to pull out a small cardboard box.

"Real good! I used to play leads in school plays all the time!"

"Dean… You're not gonna-"

"I sure am," he interrupted his little brother. "I even had it made and everything for her."

"What am I pretending to be, daddy?"

"You're Paige Evans. We're Federal Marshals agents."

"Hmm… Okay!" She said happily with a huge smile on her face as Dean gave her her fake ID badge.

"Let's go."

They got out of the car, walking towards the bridge to see what was going on. Was it normal for Kylie to feel a little nervous about this? Probably. She knew that pretending to be a cop or something would definitely get them in trouble of some kind so he had to be convincing as hell. Yeah, I got this, Kylie thought to herself as they got closer and closer.

"Did you guys find anything?" They heard one of the cops call down to the two other men that were down under the bridge.

"No! Nothing!" One of them called back up.

"You fellas had another one like this last month, didn't you?" Dean said to get their attention.

"And who are you?"

"Federal Marshals." They held up their badges to the cop before putting them away.

The cop looked puzzled as if he didn't fully believe them. Especially with Kylie. "You three are a little young for Marshals, aren't you?"

"Are you discriminating me against my height?!" Kylie shouted at the cop sounding as if she was really mad. "I'll have you know I have a growth hormone deficiency!"

"Agent Evans, that's enough. But you did have another one just like this, correct?"

The cop cleared his throat, straightening out his jacket from the scolding he got from Kylie. "Yeah, that's right, about a mile up the road. There have been others before that."

"So this victim," Sam started, "you knew him?"

The cop nodded. "A town like this, everybody knows everybody."

"Any connection between the victims? Besides that they're all men?"

"No. Not so far as we can tell."

"So what's the theory?"

"Honesty… We don't know. Serial murderer, kidnapping ring." Kylie's face turned white with the mention of a murderer being involved. What are they getting her into?

"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys." Sam slammed his foot down on Dean's to tell him to 'shut the hell up' before they were found out that they weren't real Marshals.

"Heh… Thank you for your time, gentlemen…" Sam told them with a forced smile as they walked away. The cop gave them a weird look as they were walking away. When they were further away from the crime scene, Dean hit Sam upside the head. "Ow! What was that for?!"

"What'd you have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to police like that?"

"C'mon!" Dean stepped in front of Sam. "They don't really know what's going on! We're all alone on this and if we're gonna find dad, we've gotta get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."

Kylie grabbed onto Dean's jacket sleeve to get his attention to turn around.

"Can I help you boys?" The sheriff asked them sounding very unamused with having to deal with them.

"No, sir. We were just leaving. Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," he addressed the two men in suits who walked past them.

"What's that mean,da-" Dean kicked her heel to shut her up. "Ow!" He grabbed her arm tightly before they started walking away from the scene and back to the Impala. "What'd I do? That hurt."

"Look, whenever we're around cops or whatever don't call me dad, okay? We don't want our covers blown."

"Sorry…"

* * *

Next, they wanted to talk to this girl that the three of them overheard the cops talking about. It was one of their daughters, apparently she had been dating the man who recently gone missing and was trying to get all the information that she could to find him. Clearly she had no luck. No surprise there. Just putting up posters all over town won't find him. Not this time.

As the three hunters were walking down the sidewalk, Kylie holding Dean's hand as instructed to do so she 'wouldn't get lost' they saw some girl who was putting up posters. That had to be her.

"Dad, look," Kylie started to point at the girl, but Sam made her lower it.

"Don't point at people," he whispered at her. "It's rude."

"Sorry, Uncle Sammy."

"Are you Amy?" Dean asked the girl as she was pinning up some more posters on a wall.

"Yes?" Amy answered, sounding confused as she had never seen these people in her entire life.

"Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy, and my daughter Kylie."

"He never mentioned you guys to me." She stuffed some of the extra posters in her bag, turning around and walking off to put them up in other area.

"Ah, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much. We're up in Modesto."

"So," Sam interrupted, "we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around-"

Another woman walked up to Amy, putting a hand on her shoulder. Clearly they knew each other. "Hey, are you okay?" She asked Amy in a caring voice.

"Yeah."

"Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions?"

* * *

The group decided to go into a local diner to talk about what was going on. Amy didn't want just anybody passing on the streets to know what was going on or anything. They sat in a booth with a missing poster that Amy made up sitting in between them on the table in front of them. Sam, Dean, and Kylie sat on one side of the booth while Amy and her friend were sitting across from them. Kylie had her 3DS up at full volume while playing a game and drinking chocolate milk through a straw, she wasn't really paying attention to what was going on. That upset Dean a little bit because even though she is young she's supposed to be paying attention to the case details, she'll have to do this on her own at some point in the future.

"Well, I was on the phone with Troy-"

"YES!" Kylie yelled loud enough to interrupt Amy's story. She had finally defeated that pesky boss in her game that she tried, what felt like, hundreds of times. When she noticed that her dad was glaring at her looked back at him with a puzzled expression. "What?"

"Give me the game."

"What. Why?"

"You're being noisy. Give it." This time, Dean held out his hand to show that he was being serious.

"But, dad!" Before she could protest further, Dean snatched the 3DS from her and turned it off before putting it in his pocket. "DAD! I DIDN'T SAVE!"

"Hush."

"Sorry about that, go on," Sam told Amy who smiled at Kylie.

"Okay, I was on the phone with Troy while he was driving home. He said he would call me right back but he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange or out of the ordinary?"

"No, nothing I can remember."

Dean leaned forward in his seat, placing his hands on the table. "So, here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared… something's not right. So if you've heard anything…" The two friends looked at each other as if they were debating with each other from an nonvocal conversation if they should tell. "What is it?"

"Well," Amy's friend started slowly. "I mean.. With all these guys going missing… people talk."

"What'd they talk about?" The three of them ask together.

"It's kinda this local legend. This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial like, decades ago." Dean looked at Sam as she was telling the legend. "Well, supposedly, she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up they di-..." She looked at Kylie who was listening intently to the story with wide eyes. "Er… they disappear forever."

Well, that's all the information that they needed. It was time to do research at the local library.

* * *

The first website that Dean decided would be the best place to get any information on his legend would be the Jericho Herald that held all newspaper archives and major reports. He was typing away trying to find any information with Sam leaning over his shoulder on one side and Kylie on the other side. Clearly personal space wasn't a thing anymore with them around.

Female Murder Hitchhiking was the first thing that Dean typed into the archive service center.

(0) Results for search "Female Murder Hitchhiking"

Dammit.

He went back to the search bar and deleted the work Hitchhiking and changed it to Centennial Highway.

(0) Results for search "Female Murder Centennial Highway."

Goddamit.

"Let me try it," Sam said as he reached towards the mouse.

He didn't even get a chance before Dean slapped it away. "I got it." Sam pushed Dean's chair out of the way so he could get to the computer. "Dude!" He punched his arm in frustration. "You're such a control freak."

Sam let out a sigh. "So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"

"Oooh! What if it was… um…" Kylie drooped over Sam's shoulder to get a better look at the computer screen. "I dunno what it's called but it's when people decide that they don't wanna live anymore and make themselves die. What if it's that?"

Sam and Dean looked at each other, they knew that Kylie was onto something here.

"Hmm… You may be moving us in the right direction."

Sam replaced Murder with Suicide in the search bar to see if that would do anything to aid their search.

Result for Search "Female Suicide Centennial Highway"

Dean raised an eyebrow in surprise that his daughter actually moved them forward in their case. He felt a sense of pride for her. "Nice job, kiddo."

"Thanks, dad."

"This was in 1981," Sam read. "Constance Welch, 24 years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."

"What?! Why!" Kylie sound rather loudly that a few people turned around to look at her. Dean cleared his throat, picking her up from Sam's shoulder and setting her on his lap instead.

"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back they aren't breathing. Both die."

"Eugh… That's why I'm afraid of water, Uncle Sammy."

"''Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said husband, Joseph Welch.'"

Dean whistled loudly, snapping his fingers to get Kylie's attention while she was looking elsewhere. "You still with us?"

"Yes, why? I was listening, I promise."

"Look." He pointed at the computer screen that now displayed a picture of a bridge. "That bridge look familiar to you?"

Kylie smiled. "Yeah! That's the bridge we were just at."

* * *

They waited until that night to go back to said bridge, the angry spirit would be there at night rather than in the daytime. The moon was glistening over the over underneath the bridge, and Kylie being at that age she thought it was the most amazing thing.

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive," Dean joked as they looked down at the rushing water beneath them.

"Do you think grandpa would have been here?"

"Well… he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him." He walked away from the edge of the bridge with the two following his lead. "Now we keep digging 'till we find him. It may take a while."

"Dean…" Sam started. "I told you I've got to get back by-"

"Monday," he finished for him sounding a bit hurt. "Right." He turned to face him. "The interview. "I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just gonna become some lawyer, marry your girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? Does she know about the things you've done?"

"No, and she's not ever gonna know." Sam walked towards Dean, quickly closing the space between them, leaving Kylie to back up away from them.

"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but you're gonna have to face up to who you really are."

"Who is that?"

"One of us."

"No! I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"Well, you have a responsibility."

"Don't you have a responsibility now too? To raise Kylie, hopefully, away from all of this? Doesn't she deserve just that? She deserves to have one living parent, Dean. I was hoping that you would put all of this behind you to dad and his crusade, if it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what mom looks like. So what does it matter? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, mom's gone and she isn't coming back."

Dean grabbed Sam by the shirt, shoving him up against one of the metal beams on the bridge looking like he was about to fight.

"Don't talk about my daughter or mom like that."

"Dad! Stop it!" Kylie shouted, grabbing onto his arm. She tried pulling him away but she wasn't strong enough, but luckily he let go of Sam on his own. "Dad?"

"What?"

"Is… Grandma dead?"

There was an awkward silence between the three of them. He wanted to avoid this subject at all costs, but… what did he honestly expect? He knew it was going to come up eventually.

He knelt down in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I didn't know how you would react." It looked like Kylie was going to cry over the grandmother that she never even met before. She felt like everyone in her life was either dying or had already died. "I'm really sorry, I-" He paused when he noticed that Kylie wasn't even focused on him but on something behind him. "What?"

"D-dad…" She said slowly, her eyes focused on the woman in a white dress standing on the edge of the bridge.

Dean looked over his shoulder to see what Kylie was seeing. He stood up quickly, making sure that Kylie was staying behind him. The woman turned to face them with a scared look on her face as if she knew what her fate was going to be. She only broke eye contact when she jumped over the edge. They ran over to where she jumped to see where she went. But there was nothing. From behind them the engine roared to life from the Impala parked on the other side of the bridge, it caused them all the jump in surprise when the headlights shined on them.

"What the…" Dean picked Kylie up and held her close to his chest in case they needed to move quickly.

"Who's driving the car?" Kylie whimpered, burying her head against Dean's chest.

He fished the Impala's keys out of his pocket, holding them up for them to see. The tires squealed as it was moving towards them at a high speed. They started running as fast as they could, but, of course, there was no way that they could outrun a car. So they did the only thing they could do that would possibly save them from being ran over. They jumped off the bridge. Sam managed to hang on to one of metal beams of the bridge and was holding on for dear life as he was trying to pull himself back up. He looked back down at the ground to see some slight movement.

"Dean!" He called down to the figure, who thankfully was his brother.

"What!" He called back up to Sam, crawling out of the water and covered in mud.

Something wasn't right… He saw Dean but… "Where's Kylie?!"

"She's right…" Dean glanced around on the land he was on but didn't see his daughter. Oh no. "Kylie?!" He called out but didn't get an answer in return. His heart sunk down to his stomach, his anxiety was starting to kick in. "Kylie!"

"Dean! Look!" Sam pointed in the water where he saw something splashing around.

Dean didn't even ask questions, once he saw that in the water he dove right after it. He had no idea if his daughter could swim or not, that was probably some important information that they should know for the future. Sam just watched helplessly from above, not knowing what was going on down there. He was feeling that same anxiety that Dean was feeling right now.

"I got her!" Dean called back up once more as he carried Kylie out of the freezing cold water. "She's okay!"

"Oh, thank god!"

Kylie was coughing up some water when they were on land. "Daddy?" She said in a weak voice.

"Yeah, princess? What is it?"

"You're all muddy."

Dean narrowed his eyes before wiping some of the mud from the back of his hand onto her face. She giggled, turning away from him. "Gross! You smell like a toilet."

"Thanks."

* * *

"One room," Dean told the old man running the front desk of the motel as he threw his credit card down in front of him.

The man looked down at the card name then back up to Dean. "You guys having a reunion or something?" The old man asked them.

"What do you mean?"

"That other guy, Bert Aframian. He came in and bought out a room for the whole month.

Well, since they now knew that information they had to check out the room that their dad had rented out. Dean and Kylie were out keeping watch while Sam picked the lock to the motel room. Sam grabbed them and pulled them into the room where they saw that he'd been busy. There were posts up all over the walls and items scattered all around the room.

The first thing Kylie noticed, however, was the salt ring on the floor. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least," Dean announced after turning on a light and smelling an old meal that their dad must have had before taking off.

"Salt, cat's-eye shells. He was worried, trying to keep something from coming in." When Sam noticed that Dean and Kylie were too focused on something that was posted on the walls he came over to join them. "What do you got here?"

"Centennial highway victims," they both said together.

"I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, age, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"

"What's a 'Woman in White' mean?"

"Where?" Sam asked as he turned around. He read through the articles that were posted on the walls where Kylie was standing. "Dad figured it out."

"What do you mean?" Dean questioned.

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a Woman in White."

"Alright, so if we're dealing with a Woman in White, dad would've found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness."

"No, dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"

"Uhuh…" Kylie muttered. "Why don't we ask her husband? He's alive still though."

"Another great idea, Kylie. Look, you guys find an address I'm gonna take a shower."

"Listen, Dean… I'm sorry about what I said about mo-"

"No chick-flick moments."

"Alright, jerk."

"Bitch."

When Sam and Dean went off to do their own things it was hard for Kylie to not explore the room for herself to see what else was in there. All of this stuff was so foreign to her. Although, the first thing that she noticed was a little picture stuck in the mirror of two little boys and an older man. She turned to face Sam who was sitting on the bed then back down to the picture.

She climbed on the bed next to him with the picture still in hand. "Uncle Sammy?"

"Hm?"

"Who are they?" She held the picture out to her uncle who slowly took it from her.

He smiled. "That's me." He pointed to the younger boy in the picture. "That's your dad." He pointed to the older boy. "And that's… that's your grandfather." He pointed to John who was sitting in the middle.

Sam couldn't help but tell Kylie some of the stories of his and Dean's childhood. She was so interested in the stories that they didn't know how much time had actually passed until Dean came out of the bathroom.

"Hey, I'm starving. I'm gonna grab something to eat, you wanna come?"

"No," Sam said, tucking the picture Kylie found into his coat pocket.

"Aframian's buying."

"Mnh-mnh…"

"Kylie?"

"Yeah!" She hopped off the bed, saying her goodbyes to Uncle Sammy before they left the motel room. "I'm starving, dad!"

"I am too, princess." He adjusted his leather jacket as they walked towards the Impala. He was the first one to notice the cops talking to the old man at the front desk.

"Snitch…" Kylie muttered when she finally noticed.

Dean grabbed Kylie's arm, turning around to quickly walk away from the cops. He pulled out his cell-phone and called Sam to warn him about what was going on outside.

"Dude, Five-O. Take off."

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Kylie thought with a puzzled look on her face.

"Uh, they kinda spotted me. Go find dad." He closed the cell-phone when the cops approached them from behind. Dean moved Kylie to stand behind him, he'll be damned if they lay a finger on her. "Problem, officers?"

"Where's your partner?"

"Partner? Wha- what partner?" The cop motioned towards the motel room that Dean and Kylie came out of to go investigate. They both had a nervous expression on their faces when they saw him going towards there with Sam still in the room.

"So," the cop continued, "fake U.S. Marshal, fake credit cards. Also forced a child into impersonating a Marshal. You got anything that's real?"

"My boobs," Dean said with a smile on his face. Kylie was trying to keep her laughter in, but she wasn't laughing at all when they were both getting arrested.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

* * *

"So, you two want to give us your real names?" Another cop said as he entered the questioning room at the police station, carrying a box. Dean had instructed Kylie to not say a word and to let him handle it.

"I told you. It's Nugent, Ted Nugent."

"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here."

"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kinda trouble or 'squeal like a pig' trouble?"

"You got the faces of 10 mission persons taped to your wall, along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo jumbo, all while putting a child in danger. Boy, you are officially a suspect."

"That makes sense 'cause when the first one went missing in '82, I was 3."

"I know you got partners. One of them's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing." The cop started shuffling through the box that he had set on the table. "So tell me, Dean…" He threw an extremely heavy leather bound book in front of Dean on the table. "Is this his?" He sat on the table. "I thought that might be your name. And this young lady must be Kylie. See, I leafed through this, what little I could make out. I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy, but I found this too." Dean leaned forward to see what he was talking about. It was his name with a set of numbers. "Now, you're staying right here 'till you tell me exactly what the hell that means."

* * *

"I'm telling you that's my high school locker combo."

"Are we gonna do this all night long?"

Another cop entered room to get ahold of the cop that was integrating Dean. "We just got a 911. Shots fired over a Whiteford Road."

"Do either of you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No?"

"Good." He didn't waste any time handcuffing the two before leaving them there.

It didn't take long before Dean noticed the paper clip that was sticking out of his dad's journal. Now they were gonna get somewhere.

"I'm gonna show you how to break outta handcuffs," Dean told Kylie as he bent it out of shape for it to work.

They were now free and huddled up next to the door. Dean was looking out to make sure that nobody was around when they made their escape. There were a few times where he had to move back into hiding because a cop unexpectedly showed up, but they haven't gotten caught. Yet. Once it was all cleared out he and Kylie quickly made it out, going to the nearest phone booth.

Dean punched in Sam's number and was relieved when he picked up so quickly. "Fake 911 phone call, Sammy? I dunno, that's pretty illegal."

"Lemme talk to him!" Kylie shouted at her dad while jumping up try and reach the phone but Dean kept moving her away.

"Listen, we gotta talk…" He listened as Sam was going on about what he figured out when he and Kylie were locked up. "Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Nope, he kept talking and talking and talking… "Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho. …. We've got his journal. …. Well, he did this time. … Same old ex-Marine crap when he wants to let us know where he's going. …. I'm not sure yet."

"Dad! Let me talk to Uncle Sammy!"

"Sam? Sam?!" Dean looked at the phone that had now turned into static. Which means… "c'mon, Kylie!" He scooped up his daughter as he ran as fast as he could towards the house where it all happened.

* * *

The Impala was in the distance right in front of the house, Dean put Kylie down before pulling a gun out of his waistband. He shot the driver's side window of the Impala where he saw the Woman in White trying to hurt Sam. She had disappeared only for a moment only to come back seconds later looking like a terrible monster that caused Kylie to scream. Once she was gone again, Sam put the car into drive.

"I'm taking you home," he called out before stepping on the gas.

"Sam!" They watched as Sam drove through the front of the house. That was gonna leave some damage to the car. "Stay back!" He told his daughter as he ran into the partially destroyed house. "Sam! You okay!"

"I think so," he said.

"Can you move?"

"Yeah, help me." Dean grabbed Sam's arm and pulled him out through the passenger side door that he managed to pull opened.

Kylie watched as the Woman in White pick up a huge picture frame that was of her old family. Her and her two children that she had lost due to drowning. She threw the picture frame down as she looked up at the brothers, she pinned them against a drawer and the Impala. No matter how hard they tried they couldn't move it. Electrical currents moved through the house, the lights were flickering, and water was dripping down the stairs that lead upstairs.

When the Woman in White looked up she saw her two children standing there looking down at her. They held hands and said, "You've come home to us, mommy," they said together. They then appeared behind her, wrapping there arms around her as she screamed loudly. The three Winchester's watched the gruesome scene as the Woman in White disappeared back home with her children.

Sam and Dean managed to push the drawer away from them. It was over now. The only thing that was left now in her place was a puddle of water.

"Daddy!" They heard Kylie yell as she ran towards them. She held her arms up to him.

"You were so brave," Dean said, kissing her forehead.

"Is there where she drowned her kids, daddy?"

"Yeah…"

"That's why she could never go home…" Sam added. "She was too scared to face them."

"Nice work everyone." He slapped Sam on the chest who laughed in response.

"Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"

"Hey, we saved your ass. I'll tell you another thing… If you screwed up my car, I'll kill you."

* * *

Kylie was sleeping peacefully in the backseat of the Impala while Sam and Dean were going through their fathers journal trying to figure out where he wanted them to go. Of course, with Sam being the brains he figured it out in no time.

"Okay, so here's where dad went," he started to say, moving his finger with the map he was looking at. "It's called Blackbottle Ridge, Colorado."

"Sounds charming. How far?"

"About 600 miles."

"If we shag ass, we can make it by morning."

"Dean, um…"

"You're not going."

"The interview's in 10 hours. I gotta be there."

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I'll take you home."

* * *

Kylie was still asleep when Dean dropped Sam back off at home. She wouldn't get a chance to say goodbye to her Uncle Sammy.

"Maybe I will catch up with you guys later," Sam said after getting out of the Impala.

"Yeah, alright. Sam. You know, the three of us made a hell of a team back there."

"Yeah…" Was all that Sam could say before Dean and Kylie drove off.

Even before Dean took off too far he swore that he saw some smoke coming from Sam's apartment. He woke Kylie up in a panic, telling her where he was going. When he ran into Sam's apartment he saw Jess on the ceiling, the place bursting into flames. He grabbed Sam and forced him out of the apartment before he burned to death.

The fire trucks pulled up and put out of the flames not long after that happened. Sam and Kylie were at the trunk of the Impala loading up a shotgun.

"Are you coming with us now, Uncle Sammy?" Kylie asked before Sam threw the shotgun back into the trunk.

"Yep. We got work to do, kiddo."


	2. Wendigo

_"Here you go, honey," a young woman's voice said as she put an infant down in their crib. "You have sweet dreams, Kylie." She let out a small sigh as she covered up the six-month old infant in a thin blanket. She looked at her daughter and couldn't help but notice how much like she looked like her father. It was somewhat painful in all honesty._

 _The woman turned around, walking out of the room when she suddenly heard creaking on the floorboards as if someone had been walking around in there. Probably just the house settling… she thought before turning off the light. On her way back to her bedroom down the hall there was a loud thud coming back from Kylie's room. Okay, that's it. There had to be something going on in there._

 _Turning back around she went into Kylie's bedroom without putting too much thought into what she would have seen. She thought that she would have a quick look around then laugh at herself for being so paranoid. Ha, no. She had the exact opposite experience. There was a dark figure looming over Kylie's crib. Was that her mom? No… She was just in the hallway and her mother's room was across from her own, she would have noticed her own mother coming into the room. This figure was tall and thin, he had a hand up over Kylie's crib balled up into a fist._

 _"What the hell are you doing?!" She demanded at the figure who didn't even bother to turn around to face her. "Hey! Don't you hear me, asshole?!" She stormed over to the figure, clamping a hand on his right shoulder to get his attention. "Who are-"_

 _Before she could finish her sentence, the man turned around quickly. It was hard to tell what made Kylie's mother scream but whatever it was must have been terrifying. The bedroom door to the nursery slammed shut without any actual cause, the room was shaking violently, Kylie's grandmother was pounding on the door from the other side trying to get it to open._

 _Some unknown force slammed Kylie's mother against the wall, no matter what she did she couldn't break free. She tried screaming as loud as she could to try to get someone's attention to get some help but she couldn't even do that, it was like her vocal cords had been disintegrated as nothing came out. From all the excitement in the room it caused Kylie to start wailing from the unknown, she felt the bad vibes in the room and wanted out._

 _Kylie's mother slowly started moving up the wall all the way up to the ceiling over Kylie's crib. The only thing the woman could do now was helplessly look down at her baby girl who was wailing at the top of her lungs. She tried screaming again, but this time when she tried she burst into flames, setting the whole room on fire._

 _There were a pair of yellow eyes and…_

"AH!" Kylie screamed from the back of the Impala as she had just woken up from that nightmare. That nightmare that she'd been having since she could last remember. Every time she has it she wakes up with a start with sweat dripping down her face. She looked up to see her dad look back at her with a puzzled look on his face.

"Okay…" Dean turned back around to keep his eyes on the road, turning down the volume of the radio. "You're both creeping me out with your freaky nightmares. You just had one, and Sammy just had one. You guys okay?"

"I'm fine," they both said together. Kylie did tell Sam about her nightmares since she got the vibe that he was caring and understanding while her dad couldn't be so much. She didn't want to tell him anything yet, no matter how much her uncle encouraged it.

"When do you guys wanna talk about it?" Sam cleared his throat loudly to signal to Dean to shut his mouth about the subject. "Wanna drive for awhile?"

Sam chuckled as if he couldn't believe he heard Dean right. He didn't just offer to let him drive the Impala, right? This thing was his baby and wouldn't let anybody touch it. Ever. "In your whole life, you never once asked me that."

"Just thought you might want to. Never mind then."

"Dad, can I drive the car?" Kylie asked sweetly trying to get her way.

"Psh. You wish you can drive my car, no way."'

"Hmm… What about when I turn 16? Then can I drive it?"

"Nope."

"...When you die can I have it?"

Dean laughed then looked at Sam who had a smile on his face. His niece certainly was amusing. "You hear her, Sammy? She thinks when I die I'm gonna give anyone my car. No way, Ky. When I'm dead the car is still mine."

Kylie pouted, folding her arms across her chest. "No way! That's not fair, you're gonna be a ghost. Ghosts can't drive-" She stopped mid-sentence when she remembered last week when the Woman in White literally took over the Impala and started driving it on her own. "Still not fair."

"Tell you what, you can have my favorite jacket when I die. Does that sound good?"

With a sigh, Kylie decided that she would have to settle for that. "I guess…"

"Back to you," Dean said looking back at Sam. "Are you sure you're okay because-"

"Look," he started, "you're worried about me and I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay." When he heard Dean muttered a "Mhmm…" under his breath he knew that he should change the subject now before it broke out into an argument. "Alright," he cleared his throat again, reaching on the dashboard where he left the map. "Where are we?"

"We are just outside of Grand Junction."

"You know what… Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

"Uncle Sammy, we were there for a week and we didn't find anything… Remember? We have to find grandpa before we can find… the thing."

"Dad disappearing… and this thing showing up again after 20 years? It's no coincidence. Dad will have answers and he'll know what to do."

When would Dean just drop this subject? Sam thought to himself as he was peering down at the map in his hands. He didn't want to talk about this anymore until they found dad. They needed to find him now. "It's weird, guys…" His sentence drifted as he was trying to make something out on the map.

Kylie unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned forward to see what her uncle was talking about. "Get your seat belt back on." Dean pushed her back down on her seat. "You know you're not supposed to do that crap."

"Sorry dad…" She muttered, putting her belt back on.

"These coordinates he left us, this Black Water Ridge… There isn't anything there. It's just woods. Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?"

Ranger Station Lost Creek Trail is where they ended up. Turns out it was a national forest area, but that still didn't explain why John led them here. The rest of the drive there was mostly just Kylie complaining that her 3DS was almost dead and needed a place to charge for about 30 minutes. Of course, they weren't going to go anywhere like a diner anytime soon so Dean told her that she better conserve its battery. Getting out of the car to go into the Ranger Station, Kylie hustled inside with her 3DS and its charger, hoping that she'll be able to find a plug in.

All along the walls were pictures of the area and various people from the area or that have taken trips up there. There was also a 3D plastic map of the area sitting the middle of the office. Kylie didn't waste anytime to plug in her game, letting out a sigh of relief. Her game would be safe for another few hours. She was hooked on her games that was for sure.

"The place is pretty remote," Sam started to explain to the two as he looked at the 3D map with Kylie while Dean was looking at a picture on the wall. "See," he knelt down next to Kylie, pointing at some of the mountain like areas on the map. "It's cut off by these canyons here, it has rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place…"

"We can make a fortune if we stay long enough," Kylie said with hope in her eyes. "Where can we buy some pickaxes?!"

"Kylie, check out the size of this friggin' bear," Dean called to his daughter. Kylie's eyes went wide when she saw the adult sized man was literally nothing in compare to the size of that bear. This. This is why she was afraid of them.

"...And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area," Sam finished his original statement.

"Bears?! There are MORE of them?! Oh, hell no. I did not sign up for this."

Dean knelt down next to her, this wasn't going to be good. "You don't decide what you do or don't sign up for in the Family Business. When grandpa gives you a job you do the job without questioning it, understand?" He hissed, his expression had turned from playful to angry in .5 seconds.

"You guys aren't plannin' on going out by Black Water Ridge, by any chance?" A man from behind them asked, startling Kylie.

Dean stood up to say something to him but Sam already had that covered. "Oh, no, sir. We're Environmental-Study Majors from U.C. Boulder. Just working on a paper."

Were half of Uncle Sammy's sentence actual words? Because if they were, Kylie sure as hell didn't know what their role was supposed to be this time. What's U.C. Boulder and what's an Environmental study majors? This was going to be a trip.

"Recycle, man," Kylie said, throwing her fist up to make it seem believable, assuming he meant something that had to do with Earth environment or Earth Day..

One look at them and the man chuckled. "Bull." Was all he had to say to that. "You're friends with that Hailey girl, right?"

Was that something that would get them closer to what they need to find? Probably. "Yes," Dean said without too much thinking about it. "Yes we are, Ranger... Wilkinson."

"Well, I will tell you exactly what I told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Black Water until the 24th. So It's not exactly a missing persons now is it? Tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine.

"We will." Dean watched as Sam and Kylie were looking at all the other "trophies" in the office. He decided they may needed a little more information than what they're already working with. "Well, that Hailey girl's quite a pistol, huh?"

"That is putting it mildly."

"Actually you know what would help? Is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. Y'know, so she could see her brother's return date." The Ranger looked a little skeptical with the request, but… whatever he had to do to get Hailey off of his back.

They walked out of the Ranger Station with a copy of the permit like Dean had asked for. He chuckled to himself as he folded it up, putting it inside his leather jacket pocket so he wouldn't lose it. Kylie could feel the frustration vibe off of Uncle Sam and didn't understand why. If it was about his girlfriend Jessica she couldn't understand why Sam didn't realized that to help her they needed to find grandpa. Being an adult was confusing… she thought to herself when Uncle Sammy grabbed her hand, apparently she was drifting too far away from them.

"What? Are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asked Dean sarcastically feeling rather impatient with his older brother.

"What'd you mean?"

"The coordinates point to Black Water Ridge. So what are we waiting for? Let's just go find dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?"

"Oh, I dunno, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it."

Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam who was clearly getting even more impatient, Kylie could tell by the extra pressure he was putting on her hand. "What?!" He demanded at him.

"Since when are you all 'shoot first, ask questions later' anyway?"

"Since now." He opened the back door for Kylie could get in first then got in the passenger's seat.

Dean was completely taken aback by his brothers new behavior. Normally Sam was the one who wanted to get all the facts first before jumping into anything, but now it was him who was being the responsible one. He smirked before getting into the car, driving to this Hailey's house to see what was going on. This certainly was going to be an interesting case.

* * *

The drive to Hailey's house was about ten minutes, ten minutes of pure silence between the three of them in the car. It felt like there was a huge elephant in the room and none of them knew how to deal with it, so silent was how it stayed. Well, not completely silent, the back seat was filled with the Super Mario soundtrack as Kylie was jumping through levels as if it wasn't anything.

They parked in front of the house, collecting themselves on how this was going to go down. First things first:

Dean reached his arm to the backseat with his hand opened. "Give it." Was all he said to his daughter who wasn't paying any attention to him. "Kylie," he said sternly. Still nothing. "Kylie Nyx Winchester." Her head shot up from the small double screen device to look at her father with wide eyes. "Did you hear me?"

"Can I save first?" She asked sweetly. That tone of voice always worked on everyone else if she wanted something, but it didn't seem to work on her father too much.

"Fine. Hurry it up." He turned back around, taking the small cardboard box in the glove compartment. He literally had every badge made for the three of them to get wherever they need. Kylie was clicking buttons as fast as she could to save before Dean got grouchy about it. "Done?" He asked when the clicking stopped.

"Yes, daddy." She placed it in her father's hand when he asked for it again.

Sam let out a sigh of annoyance. He still didn't see the point of this small trip that was wasting their time and just wanted to get it over it. As soon as Dean gave him the fake Ranger badge he got out of the car before the other two could even get settled.

"Why is he so grouchy?" Kylie asked quietly.

Dean didn't anything, he just shook his head as he got out of the car to quickly follow his brother with Kylie following as fast as her little legs could carry her. Sam rang the doorbell, he was tapping his foot impatiently. Dean was about to say something in regards to his behavior, but stopped himself when the door slowly opened, revealing a woman who appeared to be in her twenties with long, dark brown hair standing behind the screen door.

"You must be Hailey Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam, and this is Kylie," he introduced them before Hailey could even say anything. She had a confused/concerned look on her face, trying to piece together what this could've been about. "We're Rangers with the park service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over and we wanted to ask you some questions about your brother Tommy."

It seemed as though she wasn't buying it at all, probably because of Kylie. " You're a Ranger?" She asked Kylie in a stern tone. "Let me see some I.D."

"Excuse me?!" Kylie snapped, standing on her toes to seem a little taller at least. "Are you doubting my position as a Ranger? I'll have you know that- OW!" She shouted when Dean kicked her in the back of the foot.

"Ranger Banks, I'm _sure_ this has nothing to do with your _ridiculously_ short height," Dean hissed. "Show her the I.D."

Grumbling under her breath, Kylie pulled out the fake I.D. badge that was made not too long ago and held it up to her. With that little exchange, Hailey made sure to look at Kylie's I.D. carefully, making sure that there weren't any errors that made it look fake. A small part of Hailey wanted to see that it was fake, but another part of her wanted to believe them, especially since it had something to do with her brother. Well. Looked good enough for her.

"Come on it," she said as she opened the screen door.

"Thanks," Dean said with a small smile as he grabbed the door.

Hailey looked over his shoulder as Kylie slithered in beside her, seeing the Impala parked in front of her house. "That yours?"

"Yeah!"

"Nice car." She turned around, walking into the dining room of the house, not seeing that Dean mouthed something to Sam.

"So," Sam started, closing the door behind him. "If Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?"

Hailey walked out from the kitchen with two big bowls that were clearly filled with food, setting them down on the dining room table. Kylie had no idea what it was, but it was making her mouth drool. "He checks in every day by cell," she started to explain. "He e-mails photos, stupid little videos, but we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception?" Kylie suggested, standing on her toes to look over the table to see what was in the bowl.

"He's got a satellite phone too"

As soon a she turned around to walk back into the kitchen, Dean grabbed Kylie's arm lightly, moving her back away from the table. "Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?"

The other man at the table who hadn't said a word or even expressed their existence dropped his fork on his plate, causing a loud _cling_ to echo throughout the room. It startled everyone since, hell, nobody thought he was going to even move, let alone speak.

"He wouldn't do that!" He snapped, glaring up at Dean.

"Our parents are gone," Hailey started to explain again, placing more bowls on the table. "It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asked, clearly still deep in thought.

"Yeah, and can I have a plate of food? I haven't eaten in, like, forever," Kylie added in.

* * *

"That's Tommy," she said after pulling up the pictures and videos that she saved from her brother. There was a man in a tent wearing a red shirt, worn out jeans, had a small beard, short brown hair and a smile on his face looking at the camera. Looked like he was enjoying himself and no signs of distress. She clicked on the mouse to move to the next item. "This is his last message."

As they were watching Kylie and Dean were both stuffing their faces with the food Hailey had prepared. Sam couldn't help but roll his eyes at them, but brought his attention back to the video that was starting.

 _"Hey, Hailey. Day six. We're still out near Black Water Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow."_

Sam tilted his head as if he saw something in the video that nobody else could see but didn't mention anything if he did. Kylie was just really bored even though she should've started taking this more seriously.

"We'll find your brother, we're heading out to Black Water Ridge first thing," Dean said.

"Then maybe I'll see you there." She could feel the weird looks the Winchester's were giving her as she moved to stand behind her other brother who was still eating at the table. "Look, I can't sit around here anymore, so I hired a guide. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself." Even though Hailey tried all that she could to make herself seem confident in her search, her eyes gave away how scared she truly was. Scared that she was going to find her brother dead, or worse, not finding him at all.

Dean slowly nodded, looking at her. "I think I know how you feel."

Before Hailey could ask what he meant by that, Sam stepped in. "Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?" He tapped on the keyboard of the computer he was still sitting in front of.

* * *

After all the files were forwarded to Sam, the brothers thought it was time to have a drink while trying to fit all the pieces together. They ended up going to an old bar where bikers liked to hang out at, and since it was before ten, Kylie was allowed to go in. Rock music was playing loudly through the speakers while bikers were playing pool and the stench of alcohol reeked throughout the entire building. Even though Kylie had already ate at Hailey's house, she was still starving again, so Dean ordered her some chicken tenders to hold her over. Sam was starting to believe that she was getting her growth spurt a little early with how much she's been eating lately.

Sam pulled out his laptop and pulled up the video that Hailey had sent him before they left. "So," he started after the waitress set down the beer and chicken tenders down on the wooden table. "Black Water Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic, local campers mostly. But, still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there and they were never found." He pulled out a leather folder to show the evidence of what he was talking about, even though he didn't really need it since Dean and Kylie believed him 100%.

"'Any before that?" Dean asked, leaning back in his wooden chair.

"Yeah. In 1982…" Sam pulled out an old newspaper that he found from the town's archives. "Eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack."

Kylie climbed onto her dad's lap to look at what the newspaper said since she couldn't see it from where she was sitting. Dean grunted in frustration, but let her sit on his right leg so she could read it.

"There was another case like that in 1959, and again, before that, in 1936." He adjusted the laptop so both Dean and Kylie could see what he found on the video.

"Lemme have that one," Kylie said, pointing at the one Dean was currently reading.

"No, buzz off, this is mine."

"But I want to see the picture!" She started to whine.

"You can see it fine." Dean reached over Kylie's side and grabbed the last chicken tender that was just sitting on her plate.

"That was mine!"

"I didn't see your name on it."

Sam snapped his fingers at them to get their attention. "Hey, focus. This seems to be happening every 23 years. Now, watch this. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out."

Sam had clicked pause and unpause on the video quickly as he had found something in the background that nobody would've been able to notice if watching it at normal speed. Kylie sure as hell didn't see it, but clearly her dad and uncle saw something. She tilted her head to the side as if that was supposed to help her vision. Everything looked normal to her. What was it that they were seeing that she wasn't?

"I don't get it…" Kylie announced before they started talking again. "Am I missing something?"

"That's the thing about going into the Family Business," Dean started explaining as he leaned forward so Kylie could get a closer look. "You have to watch for every little detail that you normally wouldn't look for."

"Yeah, the thing is, this is three frames in a fraction of a second," Sam added in. "Here, watch close." He replayed it, but this time he pressed play and pause a little slower than he did the first time so Kylie could, hopefully, catch it this time. "Did ya see it?"

Kylie grunted. "Was it that shadow in the background?" She pointed at the tent that was behind Tommy.

"Thaaaat's right, kiddo," her father said with a smile on his face. Seeing that he was proud that she caught that small detail made her feel confident and proud of herself. She felt like she was getting better and better at this Hunting.

"See, Uncle Sammy! Daddy told you that something was going on!"

"Hell yeah I was right!" Dean held up his hand for Kylie. She reached over to give him a high-five, but he moved it up higher where she couldn't reach it. "Ooh, gotta be quicker than that!"

When Dean put his hand back down at Kylie's height she was prepared to get it this time. First, Kylie grabbed her dad's wrist so he couldn't move then gave him a high-five.

"Ha! I got you!"

Sam let out a low whistle, shaking his head slowly. "Wow, Dean. If she's gonna be this cocky all the time she's gonna have a hard time being a Hunter."

"Oh yeah?" Kylie challenged with a smirk on her face. "Then I guess you don't want to hear something that I discovered on my own!"

"You what?" Sam and Dean asked together in confusion.

"In 1959, one camper survived the 'grizzly attack,' he was a kid and he barely made it out of the woods alive."

"Wh- How did you…?"

Kylie held up her 3DS. "I get internet on this thing too, y'know."

"You have a name?"

* * *

"Look, Ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this," an old man said after inviting the three Winchester's into his small apartment. It was cramped and messy. What a life. "It's public record and I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-"

"Grizzly? That's what attacked them?" Kylie asked him. Her dad had said that since she was the one who found out about this guy that she was the one who had to ask all the questions. Great. However, it is great training.

The man took a slow drag of his cigarette before nodding his head.

"So… the other people who were killed in the same year, those were bear attacks, too?" She asked, stepping forward. "What about all the people that went missing this year? Were they all the same thing?"

"If we knew what we were dealing with we might be able to stop it," Dean added as Sam started glancing around the apartment.

The man took out the cigarette, looking more serious now. "I seriously doubt that." He sat down in an old raggedy recliner chair. "Anyways, I don't see the difference it would make. You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did."

"Mr. Shaw…" Sam started, sitting down on the bed in front of him. "What did you see?"

He let out a sigh, he looked slightly terrified as if he was reliving the memory over and over in his mind. "Nothing… It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar… like no man or animal I ever heard."

"It came at night?" Kylie asked and he nodded. "Got inside your tent?"

"It got inside our _cabin_. I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door… It unlocked it. Do you know a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up until I heard my parents screaming."

"It killed them?"

"Dragged them off into the night. Why it left me alive... I've been asking myself that ever since. It did leave me this, though…" He pulled his shirt collar down to expose an extremely large scar that was clearly a claw mark. Kylie's eyes went wide when she saw it, she backed up into Sam who was still sitting on the bed. "There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of demon."

They thanked Mr. Shaw for his time, leaving him in the apartment while they decided what their next move was. Dean was proud of his daughter for her first questioning, even though she did look a bit nervous. It was the start though.

"Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. They just go through the walls," Dean told them, mainly he was thinking to himself about how it was possible. Kylie grabbed his hand as they were walking down the narrow hallway.

"So it's probably something else… Something corporeal," Sam added.

"'Corporeal'?" Kylie asked him, clearly confused about what that word meant.

"Excuse me, professor," Dean said.

"Shut up. So, what do you think?"

"The claws, the speed that it moves… It could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog. Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's corporeal, which means we can kill it."

Kylie's ears perked up when she heard a baby crying in the distance. Something about that noise brought what seemed like a vision or a flashback in her mind. A tall man with a black beard and back hair holding a little boy with green eyes and brown hair. They were both leaning over a crib with an infant squirming around inside. Behind them was a woman with blonde hair and a smile on her face.

The little boy who was looking over the crib with a smile on his face. " _Goodnight, Sa…._ "

Dean pulled her from her thoughts when he was practically dragging her into the elevator. She was debating if she should tell her father or Uncle Sammy about what she just saw. The little boy seemed extremely familiar but couldn't put her finger on it. Nah, probably just her imagination running wild.

As soon as they got to the Impala, Dean went to the trunk, propping it up with a sawed-off shotgun. Sam was watching out to make sure that nobody else was around.

"Dad, we can't let Hailey go out in the woods."

"Oh, yeah?" He questioned as he and Sam were packing up a duffel bag with weapons and other things. "And what are you going to tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big, scary monster?" Kylie frowned at his response.

"That's exactly what we tell her," Sam said, agreeing with his niece.

"She's not just gonna sit this one out, guys… Her brother is missing. No, we go with her and keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend."

"So finding dad's not enough?" Sam snapped.

Oh, jeez. There they go again about their dad. Kylie backed up, putting her hands in her hoodie pocket and her mouth shut. Everytime she tried to speak up during times like this her father would just hush her. She flinched when Uncle Sammy slammed the trunk shut.

"Now we gotta babysit, too?" When Dean didn't say anything he took a deep breath as if he was calming himself. "What?" He said slowly to sound intimidating.

"Nothin'." Dean threw the duffel bag at Sam before putting his hand on Kylie's back, shoving her into the backseat without saying a word to anyone.

* * *

The trio woke up early, five in the morning early, to get down there before Hailey started. Kylie kept nodding off every once in awhile, that was until Dean made her drink up a Monster Energy Drink. That should keep her going for the rest of the night. Things between Sam and Dean were still extremely tense and it made it so Kylie didn't want to speak too much in fear that she would say something and they would get mad at her.

"You ever been camping before, Kylie?" Dean asked his daughter, looking at her through the rear-view mirror.

"No, but I always wanted to."

"Well, you better enjoy what little you can of this trip because this will be the only time you'll be camping."

Great. He was in a crappy mood.

They pulled up on the dirt trail, not too far ahead they could see Hailey, Ben, and another man they haven't met before. This was certainly going to be an interesting trip.

Hailey watched them get out of the car, slowly shaking her head. She couldn't believe that they actually showed up. The three of them got out of the car, breathing in the fresh air. Before they confronted them, Dean knelt down in front of Kylie.

"Listen, since _technically_ this is gonna be a camping trip you're not having your game thing out, right?" She only shook her head, shoving it further into her pocket. "Nuuh. Hand it over." Dean held out his hand."

"But, daddy!" She whined.

"Are we _really_ having this conversation again? Since you've been good with it lately I'll just give you a reminder: if you don't give it to me when you're told to, you'll lose it for a month. That's your last warning. So, hand it over."

Rolling her eyes, Kylie slapped the handheld gaming system into her father's hand without saying anything. But, of course, Dean found something else to bitch about.

"I know you didn't just roll your eyes at me."

"Sorry…" she mumbled.

"Damn straight." Dean stood back up, throwing the 3DS into the backseat of the Impala before locking it behind them. When he turned around, he saw that the three others were staring at them. "You guys got room for three more?" He asked cheerfully, as if the snappy exchange with his daughter just didn't happen.

"Wait… you want to come with us? And you're bringing your daughter?"

"My daugh-" Dean looked back at Kylie who was tying up her walking shoes. "That's Rang-"

"Don't give me that ranger crap, I know she's not a ranger. You two look exactly alike."

Dean spread his hands apart. "You caught me. I had to say she was one so I could sneak her to work with me."

"I really wanted to come camping with you guys," Kylie said with a fake, innocent tone, as she came up from behind Dean and grabbed his hand. "I'm sowwy for lying to you."

Hailey couldn't help but smile. "Aww, aren't you cute?"

"Wait, wait, wait…" the unknown man cut into the conversation. "Who are these guys?"

"Apparently, this is all the park service could muster up."

"You're rangers?" He asked them.

"That's right."

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Hailey brought up, looking extremely confused. "But you dressed up your daughter perfectly for the hike?"

Dean looked down at his outfit then to Kylie's. "Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts." Dean moved past her, still holding onto Kylie's hand.

They were stopped almost immediately by the unknown man. "Oh, you think this is funny? It's dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt. And as a ranger you think it's a good idea to bring your daughter out there?"

"Hey, believe me, I know how dangerous it can be. The girl wanted to go camping so I took her camping. She just wants to help us help them find their brother, that's all."

The area was filled with trees and plants and bushes covering the ground that it was hard for them to watch where they were stepping. Kylie was struggling with keeping up to the point where Sam decided to lift her up to sit on his shoulders. She had no idea how tall Uncle Sammy truly was until this point, and it was awesome! She could feel some blood trickling down her knee due to the fact that a large tree root had cut her. It had stung and wasn't that big of a deal in her eyes, but Sam insisted that he would patch it up when they lay down for the night. They had no idea what kinda germs and bugs were out here.

The elephant in the…woods was becoming too awkward for Dean to bare, so he decided to break it.

"So.. Roy, you said you did a little hunting."

"Yeah, more than a little."

"We hunt too! A while ago we hunted a spi-" Kylie was interrupted by Sam lightly smacking her leg that was hanging over his shoulder to shush her up.

"A spider. She found a spider," Sam quickly finished for her.

"Uh-huh… What kinda furry critters do you hunt?"

"Mostly buck. Sometimes bear."

"Tell me, uh, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?

Roy grabbed Dean's jacket, pulling him back away and stopping him. Everyone held their breath as they had no idea what the hell was going on. Kylie's eyes went wide, she tried crawling off of Uncle Sammy but he wouldn't let her.

"What'cha doin', Roy?" Dean said carefully.

Without saying a single word, Roy bent down and picked up the nearest stick. Dean just watched him as he put it just a couple of inches in front of Dean. Turns out there was a bear trap that he was just about to step on, but thanks to Roy he missed it.

Roy looked back up at Dean with a smirk on his face. "You should watch where you're stepping… Ranger."

It was clear now that Roy was starting to seriously doubt that Dean was a ranger.

Dean chuckled nervously, looking back at the others behind him. "I was just showing Kylie where the bear trap was, but.. Uh… I miscalculated where it was placed."

When they were sure that there weren't anymore placed, Hailey ran up behind him, grabbing his shoulder to get his attention. Judging by her attitude, she wasn't too happy with him at the moment.

"You didn't pack any provisions. You guys are carrying a duffle bag. You're not Rangers, so who the hell are you?" She grabbed his shoulder again, this time hard enough to turn him around to face him.

Dean looked up at Sam and Kylie who were moving past Hailey from behind who just nodded at him in return before leaving them behind.

"Uncle Sammy, I'm hungry," Kylie whined, laying her head on top of his head.

"You'll be fine, buttercup. Your dad has food on him."

Kylie giggled. "'Buttercup'?"

"Yeah," Sam chuckled. "That's your favorite candy, right?"

As if the mention of food summoned him, Dean walked up behind Sam, holding out a small handful of peanut M&M's to her. "Order up, possum," he told her.

"'Possum'? Where are you guys getting these nicknames from?"

"You're small like a possum. Do you want them or not?"

Kylie smiled as she took them from him. "Thanks, daddy."

"This is it, Black Water Ridge," Roy interrupted them. Stepping aside so the others could have a look at what he was seeing.

"What coordinates are we at?" Sam asked Roy.

Roy checked the coordinates. "35 and minus 111."

Dean stood next to Sam, they were looking out at Black Water Ridge. It was dark and foggy, they could barely see anything at all in the distance. This place gave Kylie some major bad vibes, she really wanted to ask dad and Uncle Sammy if they could just leave and go back home, but there was no home and there was no way they were turning back. In fact, Dean would probably yell at her for even thinking of asking that. She swallowed hard, holding onto Uncle Sammy tight.

"You hear that?" Dean asked them.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "What about you, Kylie?"

She bit her lip in frustration as she had no idea what they were hearing. "I hear… literally nothing. Not even crickets."

"That's exactly right. You're working on finding small details, good job."

"I'm gonna go take a look around," Roy said suddenly.

"Roy, I dunno if it's a good idea to go off on your own," Kylie told him.

Roy just chuckled mockingly at the little girl's concern. "That's sweet. Don't worry about me." He shoved past Sam and Dean, but nobody else was stopping him. Hey, if nobody was going to listen to Kylie then it wasn't their problem anymore.

"Alright, everybody stays together," Dean announced. The last thing he needed was more people going missing and postpone this trip even longer than it should've been. "Let's go."

The small group wandered around a little bit before they heard Roy calling for them.

"Hailey! Over here!" He had shouted.

Good. Maybe he was finally useful. Kylie thought as they were moving in on Roy's location. There was a tent that was all bent out of shape and supplie were thrown around everywhere as if they were gone through.

"Hmm…" Kylie hummed as Sam set her down on the ground. Her legs were a bit wobbly due to the fact she had been sitting for awhile. "Looks like a grizzly." She gasped when she saw the blood covering the tent.

Hailey was looking around in a panic looking for her brother, but there was no such luck. Everything in this camp was trashed and it seemed like there hasn't been any life here in awhile. "Tommy?" She called out, even though she wasn't expecting anything to call back to her. She took off her backpack. "Tommy!" She tried again.

"Shh! Shh!" Sam warned.

"Why?"

"Something might still be out here."

"Sam! Kylie! Get over here!" They both heard Dean call from a distance.

They climbed over a large tree root to get to him. Dean was kneeling down on the ground, they joined him on the ground, Kylie squeezed in between his legs to get close to him. He held her close, pointing at the small trails in the dirt.

"The bodies were dragged from the campsite," he explained to them, mainly Kylie since she was still in training. "But here, the tracks just vanish. It's weird." As Dean stood up, he grabbed Kylie's wrists to help her stand up as well.

"So.. it's not a Skinwalker or a Black Dog?" Kylie wondered aloud.

"Nope… and I have a feeling of what it is."

Back at the campsite, Hailey was holding a satellite phone with tears in her eyes as she was thinking of the worst. Why wasn't her brother here? He had to have escaped, right? None of this was adding up in her mind. She was too lost in thought that she didn't even notice Sam, Dean, and Kylie came back to camp to meet back up with the rest of them.

Kylie looked around awkwardly and when she realized that nobody was paying attention to Hailey, she patted her back to be of some comfort at least.

"Hey," Kylie started, "he could still be alive.

Before Hailey could say anything back to her, there was a man screaming for help in the distance. _Please! Somebody help me!_ The unknown voice cried out. _Help!_ Dean and Roy had their guns ready as their ran towards the voice with the others following close behind them. They stopped in the middle of a clearing when the voice dulled down.

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" Hailey asked the rest of them.

Sam glanced around the woods. "Everybody back to camp."

The campsite was empty, everything that they left behind was now gone. Roy grunted as he knelt down where his pack used to be.

"Well… so much for my GPS and phone…" He grumbled.

"What the hell's going on?" Hailey demanded.

"It's smart," Sam started, putting his hands in his jacket pocket. "It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help."

"You mean… someone? Some nut job out there just stole all our gear."

Kylie and Dean were kicking around a small rock with each other when Sam grabbed onto their arms. "I need to speak to you two… in private." They walked a bit out of the way from camp, not too far, but far enough where the others couldn't hear them. "Lemme see dad's journal." After Dean handed it over, he flipped through a couple of pages before clearing his throat. "Alright. Check this out." He handed the book over to Kylie so she could see it with Dean leaning over her shoulder.

He scuffed. "Oh, c'mon… Windigos are in the Minnesota woods or Northern Michigan. I never even heard of one this far west."

"Think about it, Dean… The claws, the way it can mimic a human voice."

"Great… well, then this is useless." He put the pistol away with a roll of his eyes.

Kylie held her grandpa's journal close to her chest as they started walking back to camp. "What about them? Shouldn't we get them to safety?"

"Alright, listen up. It's time to go," Sam announced. "Things have gotten more complicated."

"Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it," Roy said smugly.

"Yeah, that's not what I'm worried about. It you shoot this thing, you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave now."

"One, you're talking nonsense, two, you're in no position to give anybody orders."

"Relax!" Dean cut in. "We never should have let you come out in the first place." He wasn't sure if he was talking to them or Kylie, but either way it was true. "We're trying to protect you."

" _You_ protect me? I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you goodnight." Roy got right up in Sam's face, hell, this wasn't going to end well if it kept going the way it was going but Sam was keeping himself calm.

"Yeah? It's a damn-near-perfect hunter. It's smarter than you. It's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your stupid sorry ass out of here."

Kylie frowned when Roy started laughing at Uncle Sammy as if he wasn't telling the truth. She was about to say something but Dean covered her mouth. "You know you're crazy, right?"

"Yeah?" Sam challenged, "You ever hunt a w-"

Dean pushed Sam back before he would say something that they didn't want them to know about, "Chill out."

"Stop! Stop it," Hailey butted in, "Everybody just stop. Look, Tommy might still be alive and I'm not leaving here without him."

"It's getting late," Kylie told them, "This thing is a really good hunter in the day, but is super good hunter at night."

"Well put, Possum, but I would like to add that we'll never beat it in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves."

* * *

The fire that they had made before nightfall was crackling loudly, Dean was showing Kylie what to draw in the dirt that would protect against Windigo. Although, Kylie wasn't exactly paying attention to what he was saying, she was exhausted from all the running around and stress she had to deal with all day. Dean had a strong feeling that his daughter wasn't paying attention so he decided that it was time for a little quiz.

"What symbols are these?" Dean asked, looking back behind at his daughter who groaned loudly. "C'mon, if you're gonna be in the Family Business ya gotta know everything you can. What symbols are these?"

"I dunno… Anzasi? An...zai? An…"

" _Anasazi._ But you were close enough so I'll give you credit for that one."

Roy laughed again, holding his rifle over his shoulder. Kylie frowned, folding her arms over her chest. "No one likes a skeptic, Roy!" She snapped at him. "You're probably gonna get eaten!"

Dean smacked her upside the head. "Knock it off… But she's right, Roy. You are probably gonna get eaten." Kylie stuck her tongue out at him as Dean was leading them both over to where Sam was sitting, off alone away from everybody else. They both sat next to Sam, Kylie lyed her head against his arm, she could barely keep her eyes opened anymore. "What to tell me what's going on in that freaky head of yours?"

Sam sighed in annoyance, he didn't understand why his brother had to keep bothering him with that question. He had to keep repeating himself over and over again and it was getting on his nerves. "Dean…"

"No, you're not fine," he quickly cut him off. "You're like a powder keg, man. It's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?"

"Dad's not here. I mean, that much we know for sure, right? He would've left us a message, a sign, right?"

"Yeah, you're probably right. To tell you guys the truth, I don't think dad's ever been to Lost Creek."

Kylie groaned. "Can't we just take these guys home and just go find grandpa instead?"

"Right, let's just hit the road, Dean. Let's find dad. I mean, why are we even still here?"

Dean shifted from the spot he was sitting in next to Sam to now sitting in front of his brother and daughter, pulling out the journal. He held it flat on his hand, tapping it twice with his other as he gave them a stern look. "This is why… This book. This is dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. Y'know, saving people, hunting things… The Family Business."

"That makes no sense!" Sam said, running a hand down his face as Kylie took the journal from her dad to look through. "Why doesn't he just call us? Why doesn't he tell us what he wants, tell us where he is?"

"I dunno… But the way I see it, dad's given us a job to do, and I intend to do it."

"Dean… No. You can't bring Kylie with you on this, it's too dangerous for her. I gotta find dad and I'm taking her with me. I gotta find Jessica's killer. Both that and Kylie's safety is all I can think about."

"First off, you don't decide where you take my daughter, she's my daughter. Second, we'll find them together, okay? I promise. You have to prepare yourself, Sammy, and Kylie, you have to start paying closer attention, okay? This isn't going to be easy on any of us, but we have to stick together as a family. Sam, you keep that anger going, it's gonna kill you. Ya gotta have patience, man."

Sam chuckled, looking back down at the ground then up to Dean again. "How do you do it? How does dad do it?"

"Well, one, them." Dean nodded towards Ben and Hailey who were huddled up together in front of the fire. "I mean, I figured our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. It makes things a little bit more bearable. And I'll tell ya what else helps… killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."

 _Help! Help me!_ The same voice from earlier had cried out again in the dark woods. The three Winchester's stood up, quickly alerted by the noise. Kylie was about to run out towards the cry but Dean grabbed onto the back of her shirt before she got too far. That thing was trying to lure them out of the camp, if she had moved over too far it would've surely got her with no problem. Kylie held the journal tight to her chest as her dad clocked his gun and Uncle Sammy turned on his flashlight, shining it around the area where the screaming came from. _HELP!_

"Daddy…" Kylie whimpered, wrapping her arms around his leg. He put a hand on her head to try to be of some comfort while he was still on guard.

"It's just trying to draw us out. Just stay cool and stay put."

"Inside the magic circle?"

Kylie frowned, she really hated this guy. Why was he so against what they were doing? "Shut up, Roy! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Kylie," Dean said in his stern dad voice. "That's enough. If he doesn't want to believe us then, hell, not our problem.

 _Help! Help me please!_ The voice kept going on, except this time, there was low growl along with some trees rustling all around them.

"Okay…" Roy mumbled, aiming his gun towards the trees. "That's no grizzly."

"Told ya so…"

"That's enough, Kylie."

Ben grabbed onto Hailey's hand. "It's okay…" She told him. "We'll be alright. I promise." They huddled close together while everyone else was on high alert.

The growling got more and more intense, scaring Hailey and Ben back. Even though Kylie was pretty terrified herself, she wanted to prove to her dad and Uncle Sammy that she was just as strong as they were in situations like this. She didn't need to prove anything, in fact, she was the bravest child either of them knew.

Tracking where the noise was coming from, Roy spurted out two shots in the trees. On the second shot, there was a loud yelping sound.

"I hit it!" He announced proudly. He hopped over the "magic circle" to see what his new prize was this time.

"Roy, no!" Dean shouted, but it was too late, he was already running out. "Don't move," he told Ben and Hailey. "Kylie, normally I wouldn't do this, but…" He pulled out an extra pistol that he carried and handed it over to her. "Just in case anything happens. Only for emergencies." Before Kylie could protest about staying behind, both him and Uncle Sammy went running out after Roy.

In the distance, they could hear Dean shouting after him and Roy shouting something in return. God, she hated this. She hated standing around while her dad and Uncle Sammy were out without her. To hell with this, she thought before running away from the campsite. She could hear Hailey calling after her but she ignored it and kept going. She had no idea which way she went, but it was clearly a shortcut than what her dad and uncle took because she was now standing in front of Roy who stopped under a tree trying to get the others attention.

"It's over here!" She heard Roy shout. "It's over-" Before he could finish, something from the treetop swooped down and grabbed him by the head and snapped his neck as he was shouting before pulling him up. Kylie screamed at the top of her lungs, falling backwards as she was scared of being next.

"Kylie?! Roy!" Dean shouted. "Kylie?!" He tried again. Sam shined his flashlight down on the ground where Kylie was sitting. She scrambled up and latched onto Dean's legs while trying to catch her breath. "What did I tell you?!" He demanded.

"I… You sa-" She was cut off when Dean picked her up, running back to the campsite with Sam behind him, there was still a chance this thing was still out there ready to hunt them next. "But, dad!"

Dean set her back down, kneeling in front of her so they were the same height. "Listen to me, Kylie Nyx Winchester, you could've been killed out there! I gave you an order, to stay here and protect them and you disobeyed me."

"But…"

"I don't wanna hear any of that. You disobeyed me and now you're grounded."

"Ground-... From what?! I have nothing! We have nothing!" She blurted out in anger. Tears were forming in her eyes. "I was scared you were gonna get hurt-"

"So you thought it would be smart to run out there with just a pistol?"

"Then why did you give it to me?!"

Dean closed his eyes and started counting down at ten to try to calm himself down. He loved his daughter, but, God, she was too much like him. He opened his eyes to see Kylie pouting at him. "Don't give me that look. You didn't listen to me so you lost your game for a month."

"A month?!"

"Dean, don't you think that's a little excessive?" Sam cut into the conversation.

"No it's not. She needs to learn to listen to me. There's worse things than getting grounded, Kylie. You could end up dead if you don't listen." Kylie glared at him as he stood back up.

"Well, I don't want to be apart of the Family Business anymore! I want to go home!"

"You don't have a home anyways! There was a reason your grandma asked me to come get you, because she was sick of you and wanted to get rid of you."

"Dean!" Sam snapped at him. "Kylie-"

Before he could finish what he was going to say to his niece, she turned around, hopped out of the circle and ran into the night.

"Look what you did, Dean!" Sam shouted before running off after her.

Kylie could hear her uncle calling after her, but there was no way that she was going to go back. Not if Dean was around. Her vision was blurry and could barely see a damn thing, but she didn't care. Hell, she didn't even care if-

She stopped, hearing twigs snap in half and the trees and bushes around her moving. Well, should've been careful of what you say you don't care about… Kylie held up the pistol, knowing that it wasn't going to do any damage to the beast. The worst she could was get it angry.

A scream echoed through the woods. It was Kylie. Sam stopped in his trail, feeling sick hearing his niece scream like that. He felt helpless. And he also felt pissed off because Dean was the reason she ran off in the first place. There was nothing they could do. Nothing until morning anyways.

He stormed back to camp, glaring at his brother who was just standing there as if he didn't give a rats ass about what just happened to his daughter. Sam grabbed him by the collar and shoved him up against the tree.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Dean?!" He demanded. "You heard that scream? It was Kylie's!" Dean didn't say a word. "Why did you say that to your own daughter!"

"I didn't mean to, alright! I was panicking and worried about her."

" _Worried._ Now you have more of a reason to worry. I have no idea if she's dead or alive, but I sure as hell know that it got her and you don't seem to give a shit!" Dean shoved Sam off of him.

"I do care! I do! I…" He trailed off, looking into the woods. He had been holding in his sadness for what just happened but didn't want to express it. It sure made him look like an asshole. He felt like he was going to break down any minute, but he couldn't let that happen. He was supposed to be strong and not show emotions. "I don't know how to be a parent, Sam! Okay? Dad barely gave us the time of day, yet I'm supposed to be the perfect parent?"

"Nobody said that. No parent is the perfect parent, but you just gotta show love and not be a dick." Sam purposely bumped into Dean's shoulder as he was finding his place to sleep for the night. He was going to track down that evil son of a bitch and either find his niece or avenge her.

* * *

When Kylie woke up, she was hanging from her arms. Uncomfortably. She was in a dark room that she couldn't recognize. It smelled awful in here, certainly gave off some vibe to not make a single sound to let them know she was awake. The point is she was still alive. For now anyways. More than anything she wanted Uncle Sammy.

He'll find me, I know he will, she thought, closing her eyes again.

The only sound she could hear was water dripping down, growling, and footsteps. Although, she had no idea where she was at since the damn thing knocked her out. There was a crashing sound in the distance, causing her to close her eyes tight in fear of what it could be.

Coughing and talking was now there too. She wanted to call out to whoever was out there, but since she couldn't make out who it was or what they were saying she didn't want to take a chance in case it was the Wendigo. Should she take a chance on this? It was a hard choice. On one hand, she would be saved. On the other hand, she would probably be food.

Instead of calling out to the potential people who may or may not actually be there, she coughed loudly instead. To gain attention to whoever was there, but didn't signal that she was awake or not. After that, she heard a couple of footsteps running towards her. Maybe it was more of those huge freaks, she thought. She made sure her eyes were closed but not too tight to make it look like she was forcing it.

"Kylie!" She heard Dean shout. She opened her eyes to see everyone there, including some dude she hadn't recognized, probably Tommy. "Kylie," he said again when approaching her. "Are you oka-" Kylie took the time to kick Dean in the chest for what he said the last time they saw each other. "That… was justified…" He said in a weak voice, a hand over his chest where he was kicked.

"Stay still," Uncle Sammy said, moving past Dean to cut her down. "I got'cha." He held onto her as she was released from the rope trap. "You okay? Are you hurt?"

"Physically, no." She glared at Dean who looked hurt by her words, but since they didn't have time for that right now he was over it.

There was more growling in the distance, as if it knew they were here and ready to escape. Dean handed one of the two flare guns he had found in a dufflebag. When the growling got louder, Sam held his up, ready to fire when he saw the bastard.

"Looks like someone is home for supper," Dean announced.

"We'll never outrun it," Hailey commented.

Dean looked up at his brother. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"Yeah, I think so."

The growling continued, as if it was getting closer. "Alright, listen to me," he told the group. "Stay with Sam. He's gonna get you out of here."

"What are you gonna do?"

Instead of answering Hailey, Dean just winked at her before running off to where the Wendigo was at. "It's chow time, you freakin' bastard!"

Kylie was starting to run towards Dean, because, hell, even though he did say some rude things to her, he was still her dad and wanted to make sure he was okay. Sam grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "No, Kylie."

"But-"

"C'mon, hurry!" Sam released Kylie, holding up his flare gun motioning everyone to follow him.

From the distance they could hear both Dean shouting at the beast and growling that was extremely close to the group. Sam stopped and turned around.

"You guys gotta keep going."

"No!" Kylie shouted him.

"Go!"

Before she could protest anymore, Hailey grabbed her arm and forced her towards the opposite direction. It was hard trying to hold onto her since she was thrashing around trying to get free. There was a shot then a loud growl. It had sounded like Sam missed his shot.

He came running down towards them, telling them all to hurry up and move. Running down the path, they ended up at a dead end.

"Get behind me!" He told them, making sure that they were all there.

The growling and snarling was continuing, there was no use, it knew it was there. It roared loud enough to shake the mine. Kylie could feel tears in her eyes when she saw the beast in the light.

"Hey!" Dean called from behind it. When the Wendigo turned around, Dean fired the flare gun at it. It instantly caught on fire. It was over. "Not bad, huh?" He asked them. Now it was time to get the hell outta here.

* * *

There were police, ambulances, and real Rangers there at the scene to get the information on what happened. Everyone agreed to say it was a huge grizzly bear. Kylie was sitting on the trunk of the Impala while Sam was talking to the police with Ben and Dean was finishing up his conversation with Hailey. She was happy that this was all over but still felt sad about what Dean said.

She looked down at her muddy hands when Dean sat beside her. "Kylie, I'm sorry." She looked up at him. "I didn't mean what I said, okay? I just… Don't know how to express concern the way a parent can. I know there isn't an excuse to what I said but-" He didn't even get to finish what he was saying, Kylie just hopped off the back of the Impala and crawled into her backseat.

Dean let out a shaky sigh. He messed up. Bad. There was no way he knew how to fix this, but he knew it was going to take a lot of time. Sam sat down next to him.

"Man, I hate camping," was all he said to Sam.

"Yeah, me too…" They watched as the ambulance left the scene.

"Sam, you know we're gonna find dad, right?"

"Yeah, I know, and you're gonna fix things with Kylie. In the meantime… I'm drivin'." Dean pulled out his keys and tossed them in the air where Sam caught it effortlessly.


End file.
